Sunday, June 23, 2013

Photo Update 6.23.13

Rouge d' Hiver heirloom romaine lettuce, red with a green heart.

Here's a view of what's new at the soggy Alternative Roots Farm! So far this month we have had 5.93" of rain (2.1" in the last 48 hours). We have been getting a lot of use out of our rain gauge. We do rain gauge monitoring for the Brown County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), so we mark down any precipitation each morning--rain or snow--and send in monthly data.

Rain gauge.

Windswept onions.

The field is wet and mucky. Last night it was pretty windy, as you can see by the onions above--they will right themselves after a little bit.

Late season potatoes in bloom.

However, the potatoes are lOving all this moisture--the early, mid and late season varieties are all blooming and all hUge.

Bunching onions, leeks, lettuce, cabbage & cover crop.

Another view of the wet field. Weeding has been a challenge, as much of the time it's too wet to hoe effectively, and part of the time when we have hoed weeds have re-rooted after subsequent rain! Either way, it's not out of control, just irritating ;)

Barley and buckwheat fields.

The barley is starting to form heads and the buckwheat is tall and beautiful in bloom. Buckwheat is a great cover crop, it's full and weed smothering and a good soil builder.

DeCicco heirloom broccoli.

The broccoli is really coming along--can't wait to put delicious full heads of broccoli in the CSA boxes! I am fascinated by how broccoli grows, and love how it tastes.

Young apple, ping pong ball size.

The apple crop is looking good this year! The apples are growing nicely, about the size of ping pong balls. A great big Thank You to our volunteers from last year, the incidence of Plum Curculio is visibly down--picking up all those dropped apples really made a difference.

Amish Snap heirloom peas.

The pea vines are getting full of pods and it looks like we'll get a good picking just in time for our first week of CSA.